The Rotherham scandal continues to generate outrage and disgust. The abuse of an estimated 1,400 children – let down by police, social workers and councillors – represents a betrayal of trust on an almost unimaginable scale.The abuse often took place in public: many of the crimes were committed in taxis. Teachers knew, social workers knew, even parents knew. The police were deaf to cries for help. As Professor Alexis Jay’s report put it: “Parents were often not reporting a missing child as they saw it as a waste of time.”

How could this happen? The litany of mistakes, of scandal intertwined with scandal, may take a long time to unpick – and we believe that a public inquiry would surely be a proper way of doing it. Those guilty of failures or neglect should not be able to get away with it to continue their careers elsewhere.

One question that might also be asked is why Labour endorsed Shaun Wright for Police and Crime Commissioner of South Yorkshire in 2012. He had resigned only two years earlier as head of children’s services in Rotherham – accepting responsibility for the council’s terrible failures. What on earth possessed the party to give this man a second political life – let alone have Ed Miliband pose with him for a photo during the election? Labour has now distanced itself from PCC Wright, but Mr Miliband’s silence on wider events in Rotherham is disappointing.

Westminster must engage fully with the wrong-doing, not just for the sake of exposing crimes but also to consider necessary reforms to prevent these horrors happening again. If our institutions are failing children, the public has a right to know it. And a right to see those responsible duly punished.